


Earth's A Pretty Great Place.

by DinosaurTheology



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Conversations, F/M, Friendship, Late Night Conversations, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 09:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10435014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinosaurTheology/pseuds/DinosaurTheology
Summary: Mewni's awesome and all, but it can get nasty. Star takes a trip down memory lane and lets Marco know why she thinks Earth's a pretty great place.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Star's not mine--I hope I could ever invent a character that darling. Hope this helps get through the season ending hiatus. I have a longer piece coming down the pipe, soon, but it'll post a little slower than usual cause I'm starting firefighter school soon and although cool that's gonna be... busy making.

Friendship Thursday is sacred. It's a temple to a relationship that has come to rest at the center of two worlds. The hearts of Earth and Mewni slumber gently together on the Diaz' overstuffed sofa while a movie--usually something cheesy and from the eighties but you never know--plays on to an audience made oblivious by the week's school, extracurricular and monster fighting activities. Tonight is supposed to be Predator. Marco has assured Star that she will love it. It's packed with violence and features Earth's mightiest warriors in combat against a scourge from beyond the stars.

She watches rapt, a while, before saying, "Hey! How come that one guy sounds just like Omnitraxus? Is it because the Big O is, like, all of time and space or something? That would make sense. Kinda. As much as anything ever does."

"It's more basic than that," Marco says.

"Howzat?"

"That's Carl Weathers. He's in every show and movie, even when he's not there. Sensei told me that the absence of Carl Weathers is actually just Carl Weathers waiting to happen."

"So he IS omnipresent like the Big O." She shudders. "S'got me all... tingly. I got the tingles."

"He's somehow omnipresent and not at the same time," Marco says. "Like, when you see him here in the movie, fighting the monster or getting killed by it or whatever, he's there and not here. But at any other time..." He shrugs. "When Carl Weathers isn't somewhere, he could be anywhere."

"And this is the kinda deep, philosophical stuff you learn about when you get your red belt in tang soo do?"

"Well, it's more of a brown belt concept but... sensei says that I'm pretty advanced for my level so he let me in on it."

"Ah, okay... cool, cool, cool." She watches in silence for a few minutes longer, nearly squirms in appreciation when Jesse "the Body" Ventura growls his famous line about not having time to bleed and, finally, nibbles her wand pensively. She says, "Marco, did I ever tell you why being on Earth is kinda great, sometimes?"

"Is it cause I'm here? Cause I'm pretty rad."

"Sure, sure," she says. "Totes rad. But no."

"Then it's got to be nachos."

"Also rad, but no."

"Cheese sticks? Cheese sticks are really good."

She narrows her eyes. "Cheese sticks? This sounds... intriguing. It's not the answer but you are going to introduce me to this concept, loyal vassal."

He bows from the neck. "Forsooth, m'lady. So... if not nachos or cheese sticks, what does make you think of earth as such a great place?"

"It has to do with the way I was raised, with something that happened when I was little. Did I ever tell you that the Royal Guards of Mewni were my babysitters?"

"Yeah," he says. "They're the ones who taught you how to fight. That's how we ended up with the... unpleasantness... at the football field."

"Yeah, we're gonna try to forget that one." She nods. "Did I ever tell you why I had a bunch of burly guys in armor for my baby sitters instead of the duke in the next castle's teenage daughter like someone normal?"

"No, you never mentioned it."

"Okay, so gonna do that now." She grows uncharacteristically quiet a moment, draws in on herself, and then speaks. "So, once when I was little, probably like five or six cause I remember this--it's not the kind of thing you forget--but I don't remember it super clearly, or anything, we got invaded by these ogrey-troll guys from the Jaggy Mountains."

"I remember crossing their foothills after you destroyed Castle Avarius. Not nice at all.

"Nope, nope," she says. "Not nice. And places that not nice tend to make people who aren't super nice, either." She takes a deep breath, steadies herself before going on. "So, anywho, we got invaded by those... trogres? Has anyone ever used that one before?"

"I don't think so."

"So I'mma use it cause I really don't know what they called themselves," she says. "So yeah... invaded by the trogres. It got dicey there, for a while. I know that Butterfly Kindgom is the most powerful in Mewni and all, and that we have our allies from Uni and the Johansen Kingdom but... the Johansen armies were already tied up in the Forest of Certain Death and it's not like the Ponyhead armies could just appear by magic, right? I mean, they are magic, but even magic has its limits. We never even had a chance to get a message off to them."

She drums the tip of her wand nervously. "So, yeah. My mom was out on a mission--scouting places where some lil' fiery imp dudes had come up from the Lake of Fire. Fiery lil' dudes getting too close to the corn fields and, well... you can imagine how not cool that could get, like, fast styles. So she was away with the wand and we just weren't ready, Marco. We were looking west, always, to the Forest of Certain Death and to cracks in the ground because Tom's dad ALWAYS freakin likes to get just a little grabby if you take your eyes off him. We didn't have any idea that the trogres from the Jaggy Mountains were going to try anything--no one had even seen one for years."

"You didn't even know what to call them."

"Right! How can you expect to fight something if you don't even know what to call it? So, yeah. Not a shining moment for the Butterfly Kingdom but... we got our royal butts royally handed to us. The trogres were these big, jacked dudes--make Buffrog and Deer Beard look like corn stalks. They were there for our corn, always for our corn, but they wanted some, y'know, some tasty Mewman to go with it. Had to get that protein." She shudders. "Some folks got eaten, Marco. Eaten by them trogres."

"So our guards fought as hard as they could, the skeleton crew who weren't investigating the imps popping up in our corn fields or helping the Johansen forces in the Forest of Certain Death. It didn't matter, though. They fought hard but the trogres had all this crushing strength, I think they call it, and it's like Mewman armor wasn't any stronger than a freakin sugarito." She laughs, a little wildly. "Know how much that sucks?"

"I'm guessing a lot."

"Correcto!" She leans against him, tells the rest of the story slouched against his shoulder. The pressure of his presence comforts her. "So, yeah. While the royal body guards were getting racked like all crap Dad took me to the throne room. He was sort of raggy and bloody--a lot of it was trogre blood, I do know it's darker than Mewman blood, but some of it was his--and part of his beard had gotten torn out. This is where those scars on his head come from, by the way. Trogre claws."

"I had always kind of wondered," Marco says. "I just thought it might be kind of rude to ask."

"Nah," she says. "Daddy loves telling stories about how he got all his scars."

"My dad does, too," Marco says. "If you get him going about how he got the ones on the backs of his hands, the ones he got frying the flautas for my eighth birthday, good luck getting him to stop before the next morning."

"Dads just love scars," she says. "Maybe it's a guy thing? You got a scar or two in Hekapoo's dimension. I'm surprised you haven't talked about them more."

"I would," he says, "cause they were cool scars... I just can't seem to remember them all that well." He blinks, tries to force away the fog that forms whenever he thinks of Hek and her world. "It's like trying to remember something that happened to you in the future, if that makes any sense."

"It kinda does and doesn't all at the same time," she says. "But, yeah... so Dad took me to the throne room. We were just sort of... waiting, there, while the battle kept raging outside. I mean, the royal guards should have been able to beat them. The trogres were really big and strong and stuff but they weren't, lke, well organized or anything. I guess we were just overextended. Too many of our soldiers were out doing too many things and the ones we had left just couldn't pick up the slack."

She sighs, chooses her next words carefully. "So my dad just kinda held me on his lap and sat on his throne. He sang a little lullaby to me. 'Hush little Mewni bird don't you cry, Daddy's gonna make you a cornbread pie.' It's sweet... you know, a sweet little song. The kind of thing you sing for a little kid. I can't stand to hear it, anymore, though. I hear that song when I have nightmares, sometimes, and I am NEVER gonna sing it for any son or daughter of mine. It was a bad night. A lot of stuff was burning in the Butterfly Kingdom, outside the palace. Them trogres were really, really ripipng stuff up. Lots of our subjects got away in time but..." She hugs herself tight and snuggles closer against him. "A lot of them didn't too, you know? We lost a lot of people."

"So, yeah... I know now, or think I know, what my dad was doing singing that to me. He was trying to rock me to sleep so that I wouldn't be scared and so that I wouldn't know what happened when the trogres broke in and did... whatever. But when the door finally broke I was still awake. A few trogres did come in, a very few, but they weren't in much of a position to do anything to us. Mom had made it back in time, just in time."

She smiles, in spite of herself. This memory, buried in the awful night, heartens her. "Mom made it back in time. She was in her Butterfly form and just... whoosh. She whooshed em. I don't know what spell she used, but it looked like a big ol' glowy sword and she just kinda..." She waves her hands back and forth. "She made a few trogres into lots of little trogre pieces. It was so hot that the blood didn't even stain her like it did to Dad. It just kinda... sizzled and then burned off. I guess I kinda blacked out, a little bit, watching her, or maybe I just don't remember this part super good."

She pauses for a long moment. "Yeah, I think I just don't remember that part super good, cause the next time I do remember is my mom holding me, and my dad. We're all wrapped up in her wings cause she hasn't transformed back yet and he's still all sticky and bloody and it's over, sure, but I'm scared as all get out. It's not a super great night for a little kid. The songstrels wrote a lot of ballads about it, about the glory of Queen Moon the Undaunted and how she just about single-handledly conquered the trogre army, or how King River stood fast against them and protected the precious little princess--yours truly--but...they leave out the most important parts. They leave out how awful it all smelled, the blood and sweat and smoke on my dad, the noise of people screaming and running outside. Everything that made it something that I can't forget, no matter how long ago it was or how hard I try."

He holds her close. She quivers a little, in his arms, but is the daughter of an undaunted queen and queens uncounted. "That's... heavy," he says. It sounds even lamer than he imagined in would.

"Totes," she says. "Totes. So you can see why I think Earth is pretty great. Stuff's so nice, here. People are so nice."

"But Star," he says, "bad things happen here, on Earth, too. And we don't always have a hero like your mom to save us."

"Maybe," she says. "Maybe, maybe not. I'm sure bad stuff happens on Earth, it happens in every dimension, even Delmarva but... I guess I just haven't seen it, or something? Mostly I know I'm with you, here, Marco, and that makes me feel safe. I feel like nothing can happen to me when I'm with you."

"For what it's worth," he says, "I feel the same way about you. I'd feel like that here on Earth or on Mewni. I think it's more that we just feel safe with each other--you're Star and you'd never let anything hurt me--than being in either dimension."

"Aw," she says. "I'm your safe space, like a little snow globe." She smiles. "Hugs."

"Hugs." They cling to each other tightly for what feels like a long time but when they let go it's only been a minute or two. The men on screen haven't even finished emptying their guns into the jungle after Blain's death.

Star watches a few moments before speaking, again. "Y'know, we had a guy kinda like this Predator dude visit us one time, on Mewni. We called him Caza."

When she sits to watch after this, Marco says, "And? You can't just leave a brotha hanging on a story like that."

"Eh," she says. "Nothing much to tell... and mostly I'd rather just have nachos. They're more important than aliens or trogres or... a whole lot of stuff, really." She points towards the kitchen. "Make. Me. Nachos!"

He pauses the movie and does. It's the kind of life a guy could get used to, Marco reflects, on Earth, Mewni or any other dimension.


End file.
